Sometimes, when you’re trying to open an attachement from Outlook, it will refuse to do so, telling you something about insufficient disk space or lack of permissions. This will almost always happen with an attachment filename that you’ve opened many times before. For example, when you receive a weekly report called “Weekly Report.xls”.

Everytime you open a file, Outlook creates a local copy of the file in a temp folder. Next time you will open a file with the same name, it will add a (02) in the file name and so on, until it reaches (99). After that, it will not let you open the file. The solution to this annoying problem is actually pretty simple. All you need to do, is empty the temp folder and restart Outlook.

In order to do so, open up Registry Editor* and locate the following key: OutlookSecureTempFolder. You can either CTRL+F to find it, or navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security. Please note that 11.o refers to Office 2003. I don’t know whether this problem continues to appear in newer Office versions, but if you come accross it, instead of 11.0, you are looking for a 14.0.

Double click on the key, and copy the folder location. Now paste this in an explorer window and open the folder. Select all the files in there, delete them and restart Outlook. You’re done. Simple enough yes? This is a well known problem and it has been documented many times already.

While easy to solve, this problem can become really annoying when it appears often. So we are going to make our lives a bit simpler and automate this proccess.

First, we need to change the folder’s location to somethig simpler. I created a folder named “OutlookTemp” and changed the registry key to the new location.

In order for our changes to take effect, we need to restart our computer. Do that and then open Outlook. Find a couple of emails with attachements and open them. Now, if you navigate to the folder you selected as your new Outlook temp folder, you will see that there are already some files in there.

In the image above you notice that I opened the same attachment twice and it created second file.

If you are using a program to maintain your computer, such as CCleaner or System Mechanic, there might be an option to include this folder, so it will be cleaned up automatically. Since I don’t use such programs, I found a simple script that performs just this task:

What I am about to describe, has been happening with all table controls I have ever implemented. Unfortunately, I have no idea why this is happening but none the less I decided to put it here in case someone else has noticed it.

Here’s the scenario: I have the following table control that fills with an internal table. Nothing fancy. Oh, if it matters, I created it using the wizard.

Right next to the obfuscated part, you will notice my name written in both caps and small letters. Now watch what happens when I press the button (ie invoking the USER_COMMAND

See that? My name changed to all caps for some reason! As soon as I close the message box and return to the screen, my name changes back to normal.

So, if you happen to stumble across this post and have any idea why this is happening, I’d really appreciate a comment. I know it’s not big deal but I’m curious as to why it’s happening.

Due to a change in our network security policy, I lost access to Twitter. To be accurate, I lost access to a lot of websites and services, but what really cost me was Twitter. I don’t mind not being able to watch Youtube, I don’t mind losing access to services like Yousendit or Wetransfer (although I got to admit this can make my life a bit more difficult at times), but Twitter was too much. So, I decided to find a way to be able to use Twitter while at work.

Disclaimer: What I did could be considered a violation of company policy. Although it’s good for educational purposes, please consider talking to whoever is responsible for your network.

Before I go any further, let me describe the situation a little bit better. What we use is a type of DNS Blacklisting. I am fairly sure that except from blocking and redirecting DNS requests, there’s also IP blacklisting, since I was not able to access blocked sites even when I tried using the IP in a browser. Besides that, port #53 is also blocked, so the standard “ok use another dns server like 8.8.8.8 (Google’s main dns server)” tip, forum members and internet gurus tend to give you, does not work.

Fortunately, DynDNS domains were not blocked. My good old VIA EPIA would do the rest. This time, I decided to take an extra step to making it silent and decided not to use an HDD. Instead I used an 1GB Compact Flash where I mounted /boot and swap space and an 8GB usb flash drive for the rest of the installation. I chose to go with Xubuntu after trying Damn Small Linux and Nimblex, just because I feel more comfortable with Ubuntu. I have to warn you that what I did was probably not a very bright idea. Both CF and the usb are very slow, but for my purpose it is just fine.

After I finished installing, I set up SSH (check to see if it’s legal where you live), SAMBA and then, the most brilliant program ever written: TTYtter. A console Twitter client!

So, the only thing I have to do, is fire up puTTY, connect to the VIA and enjoy a nice Twitter session. It really took my some time to getting used to it, but I assure you despite the fact that it’s command line only, it is more than usable. Yeah I know, my award for the most ridiculous solution will soon be delivered, but in my defense, what I did is a lot faster than using remote desktop or vnc.

If you cannot live without a proper Twitter client (or another piece of software with a gui for that matter), consider running a remote X-Server. If you are on a Windows machine try messing around with cygwin, but expect no help from me. If you have access to a Linux box however, the only thing you need to do is run ssh with the -X (ssh -X username@server)parameter. Sweet, huh? Combine that with a sweet little program called screen and you will be able to run as many programs as you want.

While I personally see absolutelly no reason to have WHS around, there seems to be a lot of people who do. One of those, a relative, called me the other day because his box was so slow that was almost unresponsive.

I tracked down the problem to a faulty HDD, so I told him to go buy a new one and we would set up the machine from the beginning. Although my instructions were clear, instead of buying a SATA disk, he went ahead and bought a 120 GB SSD, because and I quote “They are faster”.

At this point I have a confession to make. I never intended to make a fresh install. I was hoping I could clone the old disk (it was not completely bust) onto the new one and save me from a lot of work. I have used this tactic before, but only from smaller to larger disks. I knew there were ways to clone on a smaller disk, so I thought to give it a go.

After I had successfully cloned the old disk on the SSD, I put it back on the server, and – as you might have expected – it refused to boot. The message I was seeing was something about a device that was not found and it prompted me to repair the installation from the Windows CD. I was never able to do that mind you. The reason?

For some reason, Microsoft has decided that you need at least 160GB in order to installl WHS.

That’s right. For a 10-12 GB installation, your HDD needs to be at least 160 GB. Well done Microsoft! As you probably guessed, there are a lot of people with the same problem and thankfully there is a solution.

Windows Home Server (as other versions of Windows) can be installed unattended with the use of a special text file called answer file. Sean Daniel has written an excellent post on how to do that and I can testify that following his post, I was able to install WHS on a smaller disk.

Although Sean is talking about a specific piece of hardware, I assure you this method works perfectly. Make sure that the drive you want to install to is formatted!

When Windows 8 Developer Preview came out, I downloaded and installed them on a spare PC to check them out. Appart from getting a genral feel of the new Metro UI and fooling around, there was not much else to do, so I quickly set that PC aside and went back to my everyday life.

A few days ago though, Consuper Preview came out. Big news, right? So naturally, I downloaded the iso from here, brought back that spare PC and installed. I was expecting to see some changes and changes I did see.

First of all, it looks more like an operating system compared to DP (oh come on, I can’t be the only one who smiled right now) which looked like a demo of an OS. Web Store is now functional, with a good deal of apps to try out, but most importantly you now have solitaire available! That’s right. You don’t have proper Windows, unless you can play a game of solitaire.

I do not plan to go into much detail about Windows 8 themselves. Over the last few days, there has been a ton of reviews, presentations and posts about them, so whatever it might have been that I wanted to say, it has probably already been said. However, one thing that stuck into my mind the first time (with Developer Preview) and did not change, was that Windows 8 would be great for a tablet, or something with a touch screen in general, but I don’t think I could get used to this style of working on a daily basis.

Anyway, I have a couple of tips for you, hoping to save you some time and frustration.

1) Install Microsoft Dot Net 3.5 (or 2.0)

One of the first things I had to do, was to install Mouse Without Borders, a nice little program straight out of the Microsoft Garage, that allows you to control many PCs with the same keyboard/mouse. Unfortunatelly, MWB requires DotNet 2.0, while Windows 8 come with version 4.0. For some reason, unknown to me and although there was nothing wrong with my internet connection, I could not seem to be able to download DotNet. Searching for a solution, I came across this post. What worked, was not the procedure describesd in the post, but what a comenter suggested. Open an elevated command prompt and type:

Make sure your date and time are set correctly, otherwise you will never activate your copy. Simple, but I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what was going on, before I thought of checking the time.

The nice folks at Google, obviously care about your account security and added an extra layer of protection, called Two Step Verification. I will not go into details about how it works, or how you can set it up, you can find all the answers you want here. What it does in short (for those of you lazy enough not to click the link) is that every time you want to sign in to your Google account (be that Gmail, Google Plus, or any other G service for that matter), except from your password, you also have to supply a pin number generated by an application you have installed on your phone. This extra step, minimizes the chance that someone else will gain access to your account. Neat huh?

One little problem I had, after I enabled Two Step Verification, was that I could not access the Android Market from my Phone. It kept asking me to sign into my Google account. Obviously, I was already signed in, since I was using the phone and there was no apparent way to tell the Market app to stop complaining. Turns out all you have to do, is go to Settings–> Applications –> Manage Applications –> All –> Market and then Clear Data. You will get a warning about data loss, but you can safely ignore it. That’s it. Market app will be working again.

Although Linux Mint will be my favorite flavor of Linux, I am trying hard to give OpenSuse a chance. Last month, I was telling you about a couple of small annoying things I came across on OpenSuse and how to “correct” them. Since then, I switched back to Mint and back to OpenSuse (since yesterday) and I’m hoping to stick to one particular OS for a while, because frankly, it’s becoming some kind of habit…

Anyway, back to our topic. Now I know what most of you are thinking: “Why the hell do we need instructions on how to mount an external HDD? Since the Dark Ages, you have your standard plug n play on Linux mister! Pop it in and all your files are there!” Well, yes, but as it usually happens, mine was a slightly different case than usual. Yeah I know, I got to do something about it.

I have three external hard disks, which host most of my entertainment. These are permanently hooked on my PC and I want them shared via Samba, so I can access them through a Windows 7 box that acts as my current Media Center. For an explanation on why I am using Windows and not XBMC with Linux, have a look at this post. As you probably guessed, the disks are formatted in NTFS and this is what complicates matters.

In case my disks were formatted in a Linux format, such as ext4, things would be simple enough: I would choose to automount them in KDE (I think Gnome has a similar option) and every time I turned my PC on, they would be mounted in /media folder under folders matching their label. Then, I could set up file sharing as usual and everybody would be happy.

NTFS, does not support the same permissions as extended file system. This means that upon mount, Linux applies “fake” file permissions which you cannot change! If you were using ext4 for example, you could easily chmod the files to suit your needs, but in this case, although chmod will report nothing strange, no actual changes were made. Even so, for most of you this will not be a problem, since you will be the only one using this disk and by default you are the owner, so you can do pretty much everything. In my case, I wanted to be able to allow read/write access not only to myself, but to all members of my group too. So here’s what I did:

Since automount through KDE was not good for me, I had to do it the old fashioned way, by adding entries in fstab. First I created a folder for each of my drives under root and gave them the appropriate permissions:

Now, we need to add the mount commands in fstab. The safest way to go, is with each disk’s uuid, a unique identifier that will remain stable even if drive letters change. So we need to find our what is the uuid of our disk:

sudo /sbin/blkid

In case you followed my advice (or are using a different distro) you don’t need to add the /sbin to the command. Write down the uuid of your disk and then edit /etc/fstab using your favorite editor and add the following line:

If you wish to add more than one disks, add more lines to fstab accordingly. Reboot and hopefully everything will work just fine.

I don’t plan on writing a separate post about how to configure Samba, there are a ton of tutorials on the subject, however I have one tip that might save you a lot of money from a broken screen/desk/wall:

If you set everything up and for some reason Windows refuses to see the shared directories, go to YAST and disable AppArmor. I know, makes little sense, but apparently it’s a bug in OpenSuse 11.4 as I found out here.